‘Critical uses’ of knowledge and identity: Embedded mathematics as a site for/of class struggle in educational praxis

This paper considers what the praxis of ‘Funds of Knowledge/Identity’ (FoK/I) might offer to researchers and practitioners of mathematics education. Building on a critique of FOK/FOI as reflecting cultural capital (in Bourdieu’s sense) we posit the notion of ‘use value’ in the knowledge and practices of oppressed communities: in knowing how to live poor, how to resist capital, and how to solidarise in social movements related to class, nationality, race, gender, sexuality etc. We focus on ‘dark’ FOK - defined as difficult or challenging experiences for learners and/or communities; we reconceptualise these as related to the objective relations of oppression under capitalism whereby ‘dark funds’ are the surfacing of class contradictions in our learners’ experiences. The implications for critical mathematics education are led by these considerations: in the problems we choose to tackle, the partners we choose to work with, and the research methodologies we adopt.